"Recent melt rates of Canadian Arctic ice caps are the highest in four millennia" by David Fisher et al., Global and Planetary Change (2011) in press

Global and Planetary Change, doi: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2011.06.005

Recent melt rates of Canadian Arctic ice caps are the highest in four millennia

David Fisher^a, , , , James Zheng^a, David Burgess^a, Christian Zdanowicz^a, Christophe Kinnard^b, Martin Sharp^c and Jocelyne Bourgeois^a

^aGlaciology Section, Northern Division, Geological Survey of Canada, 601 Booth Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E8, Canada

^bCentro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Aridas-CEAZA, Casilla 599-Campus Andres Bello, Colina El Pino s/n, La Serena, Chile

^cEarth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E3, Canada

(Received 3 January 2011; revised 12 June 2011; accepted 13 June 2011.  Available online 30 June 2011.)

Abstract

There has been a rapid acceleration in ice-cap melt rates over the last few decades across the entire Canadian Arctic. Present melt rates exceed the past rates for many millennia. New shallow cores at old sites bring their melt series up-to-date. The melt-percentage series from the Devon Island and Agassiz (Ellesmere Island) ice caps are well correlated with the Devon net mass balance and show a large increase in melt since the middle 1990s. Arctic ice core melt series (latitude range of 67° to 81° N) show the last quarter century has seen the highest melt in two millennia and The Holocene-long Agassiz melt record shows the last 25 years has the highest melt in 4,200 years. The Agassiz melt rates since the middle 1990s resemble those of the early Holocene thermal maximum over 9,000 years ago.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092181811100097X